Beginning in the end of April and early May, the company
will bring ICS to the Xperia arc, Xperia Play, Xperia neo, Xperia mini and mini
pro, Xperia pro and Xperia active, as well as Sony Ericsson Live with Walkman.
Xperia smartphone owners will receive a notification in
the phone telling them to download the software over the air via 3G or WiFi.
Users may also connect their Xperia handset to a computer and download it via
PC Companion.
For some consumers, especially platform-savvy
technophiles, knowing when a major OS upgrade is coming for their handsets and
tablets is a huge deal, which is why top Android OEMs are providing more
guidance into their upgrade timelines and processes.
Sony, whose developers have been adapting the current
Xperia software to work with ICS since Google open-sourced the code Nov. 14,
provided a detailed overview of its Android platform upgrade process earlier
this month.
In short, Sony's engineers tested the code to make sure
it compiles correctly and debugged it. Sony then shared the code with its
external partners. Read the rest of Sony's technical details here on the company's developer blog.
Sony is just one of a handful of vendors that have come
out with information about their ICS upgrade plans. Samsung, whose
Galaxy Nexus was the first ICS-equipped handset, unveiled its upgrade plans
earlier this week but was somewhat more vague than Sony.
Samsung said it will upgrade its Galaxy S II smartphone, Galaxy Tab tablets and
other devices to ICS beginning in 2012.
Motorola is assessing this source code and will spend the rest of the month deciding which of its devices will get the
upgrade and when. Motorola handsets, such as the Motorola Droid Razr, Droid
Bionic, Motorola Razr and the Motorola Xoom tablet, will get ICS.
LG said that it will make ICS available for such high-end LG smartphones as the
Optimus 2X, the Optimus Black, the Optimus 3D and the Optimus LTE next year.